Finally, he glanced at his watch and said, ‘We’d better stop or Miss Sharp will be on the warpath. Shall we start properly on Monday at 9 a.m.? An hour will do. My old brain can’t manage much more.’

He was writing it in his diary. ‘I’ll clear it with Miss Sharp.’

‘Might I …? There is something.’ Maggie had to force herself to say it. She couldn’t bear it if her secret got out. ‘If it’s all the same to you, I’d rather we kept this between ourselves, Sir.’

He thought for a moment. ‘Very well. Let’s say, you’re helping me out with some private correspondence.’ He snapped the diary shut and smiled at her. ‘That should do it!’

Chapter 25

At breakfast time the next day – Saturday – Ray tapped a knife handle on the table. ‘Right, who’s game for blackberrying this afternoon?’

Everyone looked at him in surprise. Maggie supposed this must be part of his ‘morale-boosting’ endeavours. She hoped he hadn’t forgotten about fixing the tandem. Now that she’d agreed to try it out, she was keen to get started. She’d written to Vi again and told her she might be able to come and visit in a little while.

Pam looked put out. ‘Blackberries? But I thought we were going to do Keep Fit?’

Miss Sharp frowned. ‘I suppose it might be an idea to do something together, en masse, as it were. We can do Keep Fit another time. But are you sure there’ll be fruit this late in the season, Mr Maguire? It’s already October, after all.’

Ray sat a little taller in his seat. ‘There are lots. I did a recce before breakfast.’

They looked at him blankly.

‘A reconnaissance,’ he said. When they still didn’t catch on, he sighed. ‘I’ve checked! There are plenty of brambles, full of fruit, on the other side of the Mirror Pool.’

The other chaps were exchanging conspiratorial glances around the table.

‘If it’s all the same to you, we’ll duck out, Raymondo,’ Bill said.

‘But we’re game, aren’t we, girls?’ Elsie said. ‘It might be fun!’

They had a morning’s work to get through, but after lunch Ray led the women across the garden. He was twirling a folded black umbrella, throwing it in the air and doing tricks like a drum majorette. Every time he failed to catch it, Elsie and Nancy yelled.

‘Oi, watch it!’ Elsie said. ‘You’ll have someone’s eye out!’

‘Why on earth have you brought a brolly anyway, Ray?’ Pam asked. She and Nancy had linked arms. ‘You’re hardly likely to need it. Unless you’ve been doing a rain dance!’

Maggie looked up. Pam had a point. It was a bright sunny day and the sky was Air Force blue, with hardly a cloud.

‘You’ll see,’ Ray said.